IAM1263 – Young CEO Bridges the Gap in Access to Healthcare

Brianna Socci is an emerging industry leader in digital healthcare. She co-founded UBERDOC as a direct-to-doctor platform for individuals to get immediate access to doctors without insurance obstacles. Brianna has led multi-million dollar investment rounds, making UBERDOC one of the few female-founded companies to receive venture capital funding. She has been featured in several business and technology publications, including Authority Magazine and ThriveGlobal, and was a TiE NY Pitch finalist. Brianna has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and leadership from Binghamton University’s School of Management.

• CEO Story: With a degree in Marketing, Brianna co-founded UBERDOC together with a doctor. They’ve been phenomenal.
• Business Service: Helping patients/consumers to immediately access their needed physician/specialist with a single transparent price for an appointment either in-person or teleconsultation.
• Secret Sauce: Price transparency – no surprise bills. Getting you the actual physician, the right specialist that you need to talk to.
• CEO Hack: App Inbox Zero – the tool process of managing emails.
• CEO Nugget: “Your team and your priorities have to change as you evolve. Don’t get hung up on the destination and spend more time on the next step you need to take.”
• CEO Defined: Works for the team that they built. Enabling the success of your workforce.

Website: uber-docs.com/

Links:

LinkedIn: briannasocci

Facebook: findanuberdoc

Instagram: findanuberdoc

Twitter: findanuberdoc

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Transcription

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00:20 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:43 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today, Brianna Sochi of Uber Doc. Brianna, it's great to have you on the show.

00:52 – Brianna Socci

Well, thank you for having me.

00:54 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Brianna so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Brianna is an emerging industry leader in digital healthcare. She co-founded Uberdoc as a direct-to-doctor platform for individuals to get immediate access to doctors without insurance obstacles. Brianna has led multimillion-dollar investment rounds, making Uber Doc one of the few female-founded companies to receive venture capital funding.

She's been featured in several businesses and technology publications, including Authority magazine, and Thrive Global, and was a Thai New York pitch finalist. Brianna has a bachelor's degree in marketing and leadership from Binghamton University School of Management and is super excited to have you on the show and hear about all the awesome things that you're doing. Brianna, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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01:38 – Brianna Socci

Yeah, let's jump into it.

01:40 – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about your story. We'll let you get started with all the awesome things that you're doing.

01:48 – Brianna Socci

Cool. Yeah. So I launched Uberdoc with Doctor Palomuto, who is a general and vascular surgeon in private practice. So she brought the expertise in healthcare and then my background is in marketing and advertising. So we were just kind of a team that made sense together. At that moment in time, I was looking for a change and, you know, I wanted to build something that I thought could be big and I wanted to get involved in a project early because I enjoy, you know, rolling up my sleeves and implementing things.

And then on the other hand, I also have a young daughter and I wanted her to be able to look back someday and be like wow, that was cool, what my mom did.

02:28 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And especially getting that opportunity, as you said, to have that, you know, partnership, but also get to, as you said, roll up your sleeves and get to, you know, plant those seeds and have them blossom to phenomenal things.

02:41 – Brianna Socci

Definitely. Yeah. A lot of these things is just, you know, kind of being at the right place at the right time, and then that was, you know, the story for me.

02:50 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love it. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more about Uber. Doc, can you take us through that and how you're serving clients that you work with?

02:58 – Brianna Socci

Yeah. So Uberdoc is your fast pass to a doctor. So today's healthcare system is insanely complicated. We all have stories of when we tried to go to the doctor, and it was honestly a complete hassle. Patients wait, on average, about 24 to 52 days just to see a specialist. So when a patient twists their ankle and needs to see an orthopedic, for instance, no model exists that allows a patient to access that physician easily. So they go to their primary and get a referral, or they just have to wait three months to get in.

There are urgent cares that pop up on every street corner, but none of them accommodate the world of specialty care. The delays that patients face are typically caused by insurance restrictions and red tape. So, yes, doctors are super busy, but there are a lot of steps that a physician has to take with insurance before even seeing the patient to guarantee that they are going to get paid for their services.

So we thought, what if we built a model that allowed a consumer to go online, choose the actual physician that they needed to see, and pay one single transparent price? So get rid of the insurance and its regulations and just pay for that appointment like you would for an iced coffee at a cafe. And then we offer both in-person and telemedicine consults. And doctors and consumers love being able to access each other with this direct pay model.

04:25 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And especially so many times we want to kind of wish and hope for there to be some type of solution. Like a lot of times, as you said, if you twist your ankle and you're frustrated because you have to go through all the quote-unquote red tape to be able to make things happen, I love that you kind of understood that, and created a solution for that.

And as you said, make it as easy as, you know, going to get your coffee or whatever it is that you get and just kind of click and buy and do whatever you need to do. At the end of the day, you get to get the. The attention and service that you need.

04:58 – Brianna Socci

Yeah. You know, and you think of millennials, for instance, right? The majority of us don't even have primary care physicians, right? Because we just don't access healthcare enough. We just don't utilize enough. So having a model where we're there when you need us, I think, is important for consumers.

05:14 – Gresham Harkless\

Yeah, absolutely. And as you said, it speaks definitely to, you know, generationally. And I think even, I think it's becoming more than generationally now where, you know, you start to get things right when you need them. It's. I wonder why. You know? And I love that you all have been created, having created something that allows that to happen, you know, related to healthcare, especially something that's so important to our everyday being and who we are and what we're trying to do.

05:37 – Brianna Socci

Definitely.

05:38 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself individually, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

05:50 – Brianna Socci

Sure. So I think two things set Uberdoc apartheid. So one is price transparency. So think of how you access healthcare now, right? You walk into a doctor's office, you hand them your insurance card for insurance you pay monthly that you assume is gonna cover the cost of this visit. You then pay a copay, and then three weeks later, you get a surprise bill in the mail along the way, no one ever told you what you were going to pay. And as consumers, we would never accept any other goods or services like this. Right?

So healthcare is the only industry where, as consumers, we completely conform to the system. So with Uberdoc, consumers will always know the cost of the appointment before they even schedule it, and there will never be any surprise bills afterward. So that's one. And then the next one is the actual physicians who participate in Uberdoc. So there are a lot of models that exist that attempt to get a consumer to a healthcare provider faster, but not necessarily a doctor or the right doctor.

So we fill the gap for accessing specialty care. And by specialty care, I mean the dermatologist, the urologist, the orthopedic, the psychiatrist. Right? So those super high-quality physicians that the industry just consistently puts gates in front of.

07:15 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And especially, like you mentioned, that price transparency. And I'm sure, you know, people have heard this. I know I have. Where sometimes you don't even want to go to the doctor or even call the doctor because you're not sure exactly what it's going to cost or you're going to get those surprise bills on top of bills and things that you didn't even realize that you were going to have to deal with. And of course, like, really understanding the actual physicians that you all partner with.

And you have that opportunity to make sure that you are getting the care that you need. Because when you do make those calls sometimes or have those visits, I should say sometimes, you realize that you're not even talking to the right person or you need to go from one doctor to another. Love that you all kind of, it sounds like help bridge it, bridge that gap.

07:56 – Brianna Socci

Yeah. And, you know, and we've all been to an urgent care, right? We know that they're everywhere. And, you know, going back to my orthopedic example, you could go to an urgent care, right? But, you know, they might take an x-ray and then tell you to see an orthopedic. So it's like, okay, well, I paid, you know, you know, I paid to come to the urgent care. I took the time to do this, but now I need to go to the orthopedic anyway. Why didn't I just start at the orthopedic? And that's kind of the mission behind Uberdoc. Another thing I want to point out is we offer both in-person and telemedicine appointments.

So there's been, specifically for healthcare, there's been a big adoption of telemedicine. And that's great, right? There are times when telemedicine is appropriate and it can solve the issues that consumers are dealing with, but it doesn't solve it. All right. You think of some of your surgical specialties, like a urologist, a gynecologist, or an ENT. Telemedicine isn't replacing everything for them because they kind of still have to get their hands on you. So with Uberdoc, we offer both those vehicles to access the physician.

09:05 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. What's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:17 – Brianna Socci

Sure, I've written about this before, but I'm a big advocate for the concept called inbox zero. So in my version, it just means reducing the amount of unread emails I have or cleaning them as I go throughout the day, so they're not super overwhelming later. So every time I open up an email, I go through the process of, should I delegate this, should I respond to it, should I do what it's asking me to do, or should I just do nothing? Some people with this method are bold enough to delete the emails that they do nothing about, but I have not gotten that confidence yet. I sometimes fall a little bit behind, but I think I'm in an okay place now with it.

10:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And being able to kind of have a process by what you do with each of the emails, I too, am not a delete person. I'm kind of bold, so I archive things. I don't know if that's bold or not, but I'll archive it. So it's not at least in the inbox, but it's so important to make sure that you navigate your inbox so that at the end of the day, um, you. I think it's, it's like, such a stress relief to be able to get to inbox zero or at least have where the thing should be kind of in place or laid out.

10:28 – Brianna Socci

Definitely, yeah. The, less time I spend, um, in my inbox and the more time I spend on my business, the better we are.

10:36 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the definition of hacks, is like getting the opportunity to spend more time in your zone of genius because you don't have to worry about those things. So I love, you know, that process as a whole. And so I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that's a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self, yeah.

10:57 – Brianna Socci

So something I think about a lot. So how you run your business at any given time has all to do with that exact moment in time. What I mean by that is whether it's the people on your team, the systems you use to run your business every day, or even how you make revenue, all of those things, things are subject to change depending on what stage you're at in your business. So, for example, when we initially launched Uberdoc, our doctors paid a subscription to be listed on our application.

So at that moment in time, that was our best way to make revenue. And then later, when we wanted to scale our doctor network, we eliminated that subscription and then chose other ways to make revenue which just made more sense. At that time. So, you know, your team and priorities have to change as you evolve. Don't get hung up on the destination and spend more time focusing on the next step you need to take in your business.

12:01 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that nugget and I think it's so valuable. It's, it kind of reminds me, I was talking with a coach at one time and I think one of the things he said is that a lot of times business is sometimes like being on jungle gyms like we used to do, you know, as kids. And when you go to the next rung, you have to let go of the previous rung. So I love that example because I think if you had held fast, this is how it's going to be. This is how it's going to be until the end of time.

You don't get that opportunity to go to the next rung, as you said, to stay present, but at the same time, know that to get to where we need to be, whether it's scaling or revenue or whatever that metric might be or how that's defined, you have to, a lot of times let go and redefine what success looks like in sometimes our businesses and organizations. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Brianna, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:50 – Brianna Socci

Yeah, so my perspective on this is that the CEO or any leader in an organization works for the team that they built. So being a leader is all about enabling the success of your workforce. So whether that's building business relationships or in most cases for startups, securing funding. The most important job of a founder or CEO is giving your team the resources and tools to succeed because they are the people who are executing, and executing the mission and key value propositions that you've set for your organization.

13:28 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that definition. And that word enable is so powerful. I was thinking, you know, enable, empower. Just the idea is really that as a leader, I think so many times we forget or can lose sight of the reality of what we're doing by helping to create that environment of success that allows our team members and the people that are around us to flourish. And when we're able to do that, when we're able to enable them and give them all the, you know, as much as possible, the environment that they need to flourish and succeed, that's when you truly reach, you know, really phenomenal heights.

13:58 – Brianna Socci

Yeah. One of the, you know, things I love to ask our team members is what can I do to help you? Right? What, can I do to make this easier? What can I do to make, you know, getting this task done more efficient for you? So that's something I try to, you know, those are the conversations I tried to have with our team daily.

14:18 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. And I think that's a really powerful question because I think if you're asking that, especially regularly, creating a culture, a culture where you have that even for virtually probably an open door policy, where you get that opportunity to always think of different ways to improve, to get better. And I think that starts to become founding or building blocks into the culture as well too.

14:39 – Brianna Socci

Definitely. And when you have a small team, right? Most startup teams are small. I think building that culture and having those conversations is really important.

14:50 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Brianna, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do now was pat you on the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you and your team and find about all the awesome things that you all are working on.

15:07 – Brianna Socci

Sure. Well, if you're a physician, join uberdoc. If you're a patient, try Uberdoc. If you're looking for new career opportunities and want to get involved in a cool healthcare startup, please feel free to reach out to us in terms of the best way to get in contact with me because you all know how well I manage my email or try to. You can reach out to me directly at Brianna bird.com dot.

15:35 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And to make that even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes, hopefully, to still keep you at inbox zero, as you said. But I love all the awesome things that you're doing and you've been able to create. I think so many times we forget that when we are looking for that way, sometimes it's on us to kind of create that new way and to change the way things have always, quote unquote been done. So I appreciate you so much for doing that and sharing us, sharing with us a story and how you have all been able to do that too. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:04 – Brianna Socci

Of course. Well, thank you so much for having me.

16:06 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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